"I'm not sorry for what I said, but I feel bad about how I said it."

"What?"

Merlin had been brooding all day. He had been sitting in his bed, under his covers, refusing to think about the world and the people in it, especially Arthur Pendragon.

That plan had, of course, failed miserably – For two hours later, he found himself in the Hospital Wing once more, staring down at a still heavily bandaged and altogether confused Arthur.

"Look, you deserved to hear what I said earlier," Merlin said, sitting down so as to avoid the eyes of the rest of the Wing – most of them ignored him at the moment, thankfully. "I'm just don't like that I said it like that. You were just injured, and you were being nice to me, and most people aren't being that currently – But you did bully me. For a long time. So I'm not sorry for telling you that, but I am sorry for telling you that in that way. Do you understand what I'm talking about?"

"I think so," Arthur squinted over at him with a kind of incredulous look in his eyes. "You're saying…"

Merlin sighed deeply as Arthur trailed off. He wasn't very good at being coherent. "I'm saying that everything I said was true. I don't trust you, and I don't know if I ever will. But I'm grateful that you're not treating me badly anymore, and I'm glad you're not hurt, and I wish I had said that to you when we were…you know, not in the Hospital Wing."

"So you're not apologizing, you're just..." Arthur blinked.

Merlin wished he had stayed in his bed. "I'm stating facts. You treated me badly and you deserved to know it. But I wish I had told you differently. Okay? Does that make sense?"

Arthur looked down slightly, huffing out a breath. "Yeah, yeah it does. And you're right. I did kind of deserve that."

"Good, glad we're on the same page," Merlin rubbed his hands together, a nervous tick. "I've been trying not to think about it. You can see how well that worked out."

Arthur let out a short laugh, looking down at his bed covers. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it, thinking better. Merlin somewhat wished he knew what the words were going to be.

Merlin filled in their quiet when it became apparent Arthur wasn't going to. "I hope that we can be friends someday. But I can't just forget everything that happened."

Arthur smiled, and although it was small, it was genuine. "I know. I get that. If I was in your place, I'd probably be a lot meaner about it, too, so I guess that makes you a better person than me."

"That was already established," Merlin said with a snort. He let a beat pass before asking the question he'd always been dying to know the answer to. "Why? Why did you treat me so badly for so long?"

Arthur's eyes, which had previously been on his, suddenly hit the floor. Merlin recognized the diversion tactic well, he used it often enough. It immediately made his guard go up, and a memory flashed of dropping Arthur off, drunk, at the Gryffindor common room, when he had talked about some mysterious 'him.'

"Don't you think I deserve to know?" Merlin couldn't help but press. "C'mon, Arthur – if you actually want us to be friends, if you want me to trust you, this is kind of the first step."

"I – I can't," Arthur shook his head and his voice at the same time. Merlin's curiosity grew. "I'm sorry – But I can't tell you that."

"God, it's not like some big secret," Merlin rolled his eyes, although there were feelings in his gut that told him to shut up. "Do you think I'll think badly of you or something? Because let me tell you something, mate – It's pretty impossible for me to think worse of you than what I did about midway through fourth year."

"Look, I just – I went through something bad, and I took it out on you, alright?" Arthur's voice, brazen, but quieter than Merlin had ever heard it, was firm in the way his eyes, voice, and body were not. "That's all there is to it."

"No, it's not," Merlin shook his head. "That's what I did this morning to you. Something bad happened to me and you were the nearest available target – Otherwise I would have saved my commentary for when you weren't bandaged up in a bed. Something like that doesn't create a four-year long animosity."

"Don't push it, Merlin," Arthur closed his eyes, teeth grinding so loudly it reached Merlin's ears. "I just – I treated you badly, and it wasn't right of me, but telling you this? You said you don't trust me; that makes it hard for me to trust you."

Merlin knew that this was only going to make him angrier, he knew it from the moment he decided to come back up here, but he did it anyway. Of course, he did it anyway.

"Well, then, it makes it hard for me to be your friend, no matter who saved who's life," Merlin rose to his feet, blood pounding, and ready to stalk out of the Hospital and go brood for another couple hours, but a noise from Arthur made him stop.

"Look, I'll tell you, alright?"

Merlin turned back, an incredulous chuckle making out of the back of his throat as he widened his eyes. "Really?"

"Just – not here, not now," Arthur's face was downcast, fists clenched, determinedly not meeting Merlin's eyes. "I owe you, don't I? You saved my life – you deserve answers. That's how it works, right?"

"Christ," Merlin muttered to himself, scuffing his shoes on the ground. He walked back around the bed so as not to interrupt the flow of the busy room, wondering how exactly Arthur's brain worked. He didn't comprehend the strange, convoluted patterns. "Okay. So you'll tell me sometime. When?"

"Just – when I'm out of here, when we're back to normal," Arthur said, and it sounded almost sincere, though there was great trepidation in his tone. "I'll tell you everything, alright? I just – I just don't want you to hate me anymore."

"I don't hate you," Merlin said softly, and Arthur gave him the strangest, most unreadable look. "I used to – but not now. Just promise you'll tell me what I did to deserve your hatred."

"Okay," Arthur nodded as if it was the hardest thing he had ever done. "Maybe if we schedule a different time for tutoring – I don't think today is going to work out."

Merlin huffed out a laugh at the comment; it was a kind of jolt back into what had previously been reality. "Oh, God. That was today, wasn't it?"

"That's so weird," Arthur shook his head; he was comfortable now, Merlin could tell, in these words, this harmless talk, for he immediately seemed lighter. "Really puts things into perspective, doesn't it?"

Merlin smiled, and remembered that he still had another problem where he needed to clear the air.


It wasn't overly difficult to find Gwen and Leon; he knew they wouldn't want to be without the other, not in a situation like this, so that ruled out both of their common rooms. Once he checked the Great Hall, which had cleared out overnight, he immediately suspected the place where they might be.

The three of them had always shared the same hiding place, after all.

"I'm not going to apologize to you, either."

"Oh, God, Merlin."

Gwen jumped up the moment Merlin appeared from behind the stacks of books that separated the aisles from one of the corners students typically used for studying. Leon remained seated at the table where he and Gwen had previously had their heads bent together in quiet discussion, though his eyes were bright and earnest on Merlin's own.

"I'm so glad you found us, we've been worried sick," Gwen said fretfully, leaning forward to brush back a strand of Merlin's hair. She didn't touch his scars this time, for which he was grateful. "You aren't – you aren't angry anymore?"

"I was never angry," Merlin shook his head as he led her back to the table to sit down. There was no one else in the library, so he had no fear of being overheard; all of the teachers were helping out with the wounded, and no other student would be up here at a time like this, unless they were searching for a place to be alone. "I was just upset. Like I said, I'm not apologizing, because I don't have anything to be sorry for, other than the fact that I left and didn't talk to you about it."

"You're damn right," Leon spoke, voice cracking slightly as he shook his head. He winced at the sound, but Merlin smiled at the genuine affection that lay under it. "We're your friends, Merlin; we didn't like asking you if…well, you know. But we felt like we had to."

"I know," Merlin sighed deeply, running a hand through his hair. "You were just being good friends. I just wish you hadn't been good friends right away. And so abruptly. Without warning."

Gwen winced. "We're so sorry, Merlin. We didn't mean to hurt you."

"Of course you didn't," Merlin reassured her, although it wasn't for his sake. There were still stings of bitterness toward his two best friends all throughout his mind and body, but he was willing to ignore them. "I just – It wasn't what I wanted to hear."

"We probably should have said it another time," Leon nodded, acknowledging the fault. "Not right after it happened. That wasn't a good move on our part. But we just – we're concerned, Merlin."

"I know you want to ask again," Merlin said with a small, self-deprecating smile, recognizing the unsaid prod in Leon's words. "Go ahead. I don't mind."

Merlin closed his eyes, preparing for impact.

"….No," Leon shook his head after waiting a beat. Merlin turned to him, surprised and confused, with something warm spreading throughout his body. "I don't need to ask. I already know that you would never be capable of being a part of such an atrocity."

Gwen nodded ferociously as she followed up almost immediately after Leon's mouth shut. "We should have never thought the worst of you, Merlin. I know you better than nearly anyone in the world; you couldn't do something like that. Not ever. We should have had faith in you."

"That…" Merlin shook his head and wondered how in the world he was so lucky to have made friends like this. "That means more to me than I could tell you. Thank you."

Their apologies were so sincere, their apologies so genuine, that Merlin couldn't help but have the truth spill out of his mouth, despite all of his instincts telling him that this was where the story should end. He needed to tell them; they deserved to hear it.

"Morgana Fay did ask me," Merlin said regretfully, closing his eyes tightly so as to not see their faces. "Not explicitly and in so many words, but she asked me if I was interested. I turned her down not really knowing what exactly I was saying no to, but I had my suspicions that nothing good could result from it. I should have…I should have told someone, but there was no time."

He almost told them that when he had left them in the Three Broomsticks, part of him had wanted to go and find her, but the rest of him screamed that this was enough. That they didn't need to know the rest.

"Morgana Fay?" Gwen said softly after a beat. "…I can see her being a part of it. She's good at manipulating people, getting them to do what she wants them to."

"Can we turn her in somehow?" Leon continued for her. "Report her to a professor?"

"Not exactly," Merlin said, swallowing, eyes remaining steadfastly shut. "She's threatened to report me if I dare to accuse her of anything."

"What?" Gwen's normally peace-filled, serene voice was suddenly sharp and violent, and the jolting change caused Merlin's eyes to open and regard her own fire-filled ones. "She can't do that! That's –"

"Excruciatingly clever," Leon pondered for a moment, eyes narrowed and mouth set in a similar, but quieter rage. "She knows that you've already been entangled with Taber just by rumors that float about the school, and that she'd have others that would be willing to back her up – not only her comrades, but those in other Houses with purer motives as well. You're associated with him; she's not. She had more credibility."

"Therein lays the problem," Merlin, despite the gravity of the situation, found himself smiling at his friends' anger on his behalf. He had only gone a day without them, and it was a day longer than he ever wanted to suffer through again. "I don't envy myself right now."

"How could she do something like that?" Gwen asked with wide eyes as she shook her head in disbelief. "Turn against her own school, her own peers?"

"Very easily, as far as I'm concerned," Merlin laughed humorlessly. "She's very good at it, at the very least. She scares the shit out of me."

"Out of all of us," Leon agreed with a nod and a heavy sigh. "God, Merlin, I'm sorry."

"That means a lot, coming from you," Merlin figured it was safe to return to teasing mode, now that his friends were back on his side again. Not that they had ever left in the first place, but Christ, did it feel like it. "The one who has many doubts about my character."

"I have no doubts about your character," Leon snorted, and Merlin could tell that he was reverting back to light banter, too, for which he was endlessly grateful. This was familiar territory. "Your character is an asshole."

"You two are so stupid," Gwen shook her head, but the brown in her eyes was bright, as if there were tears threatening to spill, and when she leaned over to pull Merlin into a tight and life-squeezing hug, Merlin buried his face in her shoulder. Leon reached across and put a hand on his shoulder.

This was more than familiar; this was home. And no one, not Morgana Fay, and not Arthur Pendragon, and definitely not Cenred Taber could take that away from him.